NMC Campus Observer

Seton Hall Campus Tour

CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine) : Jul 27, 2006 03:44pm

Seton Hall Tour Group
Originally uploaded by NMC Second Life

Inside the Malcom Brown Library- note the number of avatars in proximity affecting the wall color

This morning we hosted visitors from Seton Hall University (see our flickr slide show. Colleagues Danielle Damone and Heidi TeeCee sheperded a group of faculty into Second Life and NMC Campus (read Danielle’s column about this tour).

We did an overview and mini tour of the Library, Art Museum, and Huntley Hall with a group of perhaps 15-20, many of them decked out in their Just Off Welcome Island purople shirted avatars. Danielle and Heidi did an awesome job as it is no simple feat to lead a group of new Second Lifers around and not lose them, or struggle as they walk nto walls. None of them got really lost, which is great for a new group!

But we did have an audio component using our teamSpeak server so Larry and I could talk to them (they were assembled in a common room at Seton Hall, and could hear us on the speaker). I remembered about 1/4 the way in to turn on my recorder, the audio is no very clean at all (the levels were mixed wrong; there is too much of me breathing into my headset mike during the pause times, and I send like an obscene phone caller).

And here is something new in the Malcom Brown library- the NMC publications (virtual books) that are out on the tables– the ones you can page through– can now be purcashed for $0; just right /apple click, and select “Buy”.

They got very much engaged over in the Huntley ballroom as we descibed our recent events held there, told them how to hear our streaming music, and then as they explored the musical instruments. At this point, the group rpetty much disintegrated as the participants wondered off to explore… to me this is a good sign, as they seemed to be lingering, clicing, flying, around despite the fact they were supposedly breaking for lunch.

As a nice bonus, we got to meet and chat with Anya Ixchel who is doing some marvelous work in teaching Media Literacy in her own Second Life classroom. She described her experiences in using this with her distance learning students (she is based in Australia).

We hope to contact Anya soon for an NMC Campus Studio podcast interview. She has a lot of expertise we’d like to tap into!

Story filed under: People, Places, Things, Teaching and Learning, What's Happening

See all stories by CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine)